Cassie awoke to whispers. Strange. Silvana and Skylar both preferred to get ready in silence in the mornings, and they were usually outside by the time the sun forced Cassie from bed. Had something happened? Or were they planning something?
As silently as she could, she swung her feet to the floor and slunk toward the entrance to the main room of the hut. Her ears strained.
"How many?" Skylar was asking.
"Two," Silvana replied, rushed and rough. "They were following the same trail."
"Add that to the five last week—unless you want to count the one Elora reported—and we have..."
"A serious problem," Silvana snapped, having no patience for Skylar's logic.
What were they talking about? Seven of something. Cassie inched closer to the doorway, trying to catch the hushed whispers as they floated past. Her foot hissed a trail through the packed dirt of the floor of the cottage, quieter than their voices—yet they instantly silenced. Cassie held her breath, held her body, and willed herself into invisibility. Be quiet!
Whatever it was they were discussing, they obviously didn't want her to hear. Were they plotting? Were they afraid?
After five heartbeats too tortuous to do anything but wait, they continued.
"So I was right," Skylar murmured.
"Disappointed?" his sister taunted him.
He had in fact sounded disappointed, a heaviness to his words that had Cassie clenching her jaw anxiously. For all the dire predictions he liked to make, Skylar's attitude was normally unflappable, as though the logic with which he fought to view the world would be disrupted by any emotional excess. Skylar worried preceded complications.
Had Silvana spotted Longheirce in the region again? Was he coming for her?
If that were the case, however, why weren't they including Cassie in the conversation? Without warning her, she would only end up in danger. And Cassie in danger meant danger for them all.
So if it wasn't Longheirce, then what?
"I'm not disappointed," Skylar said. "It's just another complication."
Silvana sounded more confident. "We'll handle it."
"Handle it?" Skylar uttered a curse that had Cassie blushing to the roots of her covered hair, and for the first time, she heard him raise his voice. "That isn't a solution." There was a metallic clatter. One of them had flung something down. "Don't come at me with that. I carried you from the fire, and I will do it again if I must, but I'll be damned if I watch you let someone else set the flames!"
Silvana's voice, in counterpoint, returned to its normal dry tenor. "Well, that's sure to help."
Even if she had slept through the rest of the argument, Skylar yelling would have woken her by now. Cassie scuttled back to her bed and half-heartedly rustled the sheet, trying to imitate the sound of getting up. Would they believe she had not been eavesdropping?
"Skylar? Silvana?" she called quietly.
Another sigh from Skylar—hopefully a sign he was calming down. "We're in here."
Cassie shuffled into the main room, absent-mindedly tugging on the edge of her cap. "Everything okay?" she asked. The two of them were on opposites sides of their battered table, arms crossed and still tense, shooting each other mulish glares. "I thought I heard—"
"I...dropped a knife," Skylar said, almost sheepish. As though presenting evidence, he retrieved a dagger that was embedded in the opposite wall.
"Sideways," his sister helpfully supplied.
Skylar glowered at her but said nothing.
"What's happened?" Cassie asked.
A quick flash of wordless communication between the banisè. A pleading glance from Skylar, head inclined toward the door; Silvana clenching her teeth and shaking her head with a noiseless snarl.
Cassie shivered, wrapping her arms around herself in a futile attempt to ward off the chill seeping into the room. Something was wrong.
Skylar turned away, staring at a blank spot on the wall. Still shaking, Cassie could not get Silvana to catch her eye. She was so weak.
Clenching her jaw, Cassie forced the shudders away, tamping them down until every last tremor had fled. She was still cold with fear, but at least now she wasn't showing it.
Skylar scrubbed his hands over his face, finally turning back to his sister. "Okay," he said, and although he wasn't speaking directly to anyone, it was a capitulation, a surrender. "Okay."
She could not be sure, but Cassie thought she saw a fleeting glimpse of satisfied relief in Silvana's eyes, wiped away as quickly as it had come. The banisè nodded to Skylar, just once, and he gave a quick jerk of his head in return.
"Okay," Silvana said, stepping away and collecting her bow and arrow, never far from her reach. Off on her usual morning hunt, and the usual signal for Cassie and Skylar to walk to the brook for food or water, along with yet another lesson in forest stealth.
When Cassie made to grab the water jug, however, Skylar stopped her.
"I'm going on my own today," Skylar said, glancing in the direction of the woods.
The hide swung back over the doorway as Silvana pushed through it, the tension mostly gone from her shoulders.
"I thought you said I needed more practice on—"
"I'd rather you stay back."
Cassie looked up at Skylar, confused. What was she supposed to do, then?
"We need some more bread," Skylar said. "Can you start the dough?"
Now it was Cassie's turn to cross her arms. She had never made bread before in her life. Neither of them trusted her enough with their precious, limited flour to try to teach her. And now he was telling her to make bread?
"Start the dough," she repeated.
Skylar flushed but stood firm, even as the lie rang false in his mouth. "Yes," he said. "I can't do it today. Don't have the time. Need you to."
"Oh, and I just make it, is that it?" Cassie said, the mocking coming easier to her tongue than she would have believed. "I've seen you do it all of twice now, that should be enough to figure it out on my own, yes?"
Skylar picked up one of their baskets. "It's not that difficult to figure out."
"Of course," Cassie agreed venomously. "Bread, and water, and the riser. So simple. Can't wait to get started."
Cassie did not like being lied to. She had experienced it enough in her past, false compliments on her singing, on her attire, on her looks; false assurances that people did not flinch in fear when she passed by; false sympathy about her mother; false promises that there was no favoritism between her sister and herself. And now Skylar was telling her to stay inside, based on some mysterious threat so ominous she could not even step foot outside the cabin, but telling her it was because they needed her to make something she was sure to mess up.
But she nodded once, curtly, as Silvana had done. You do your duty. That was her place. "Fine."
Skylar looked close to sighing in relief as he ducked outside. His step quickly faded into silence, leaving Cassie alone.
Alone and trapped.
She had chosen this life. Why then was she still the prisoner of duty?
She should be allowed to decide what she could and could not face, she irritably thought to herself as she pulled out a roughhewn bowl and the half-full bag of flour.
Oh, she could wear what she liked out here and play at the self-sufficient life, but she still could not come and go, think and speak as she pleased. Same predicament as her former life, simply different walls.
Silvana always started with three handfuls of flour and just enough water to make it wet. Was it supposed to get so...sticky? She had never paid much attention to the process before, and she was expected to replicate something they had had years of practice doing?
The anger surged up, huge and red and all-consuming. She had not felt this helplessly furious since her father had signed Avery's enlistment order. Attempted control. Always control.
Right now, Cassie wanted to lose hers.
Scooping the sticky mess from the bowl with a disgusted sneer, Cassie flung it to the floor. She would start over. The riser, then water, then flour this time.
They were treating her with the same amount of respect one would grant a child. Should she not be allowed to decide for herself what she could know and where she could go? Instead they lied to her, plotting to keep her indoors—and for what?
The mixture splashed higher this time when she tried to mix it, coating her hands up to the wrist. Cassie hissed in irritation.
She deserved to know the truth, and she deserved to be trusted to stay safe. She was not their ward, and she had proven herself well able to learn over the days she had spent with them.
The flour refused to come together. No matter how much Cassie kneaded it, no matter how much flour she added, it refused to cooperate.
Breaths heaving in and out of her chest with an infuriated rattle, Cassie scooped up handfuls of the stringy, sopping failure and threw at the doorway. It spattered against the wall and deer hide indiscriminately, the pure white speckles the cleanest thing that the cabin had likely ever had touch it.
She was on her fourth batch, the previous failures flaking off her skin in half-dried patches, when the deer hide shifted, folding inwards.
"Hey, if you—" It was Silvana, ducking back into the hut for something. She froze, eyes tracking over the mess Cassie had created in a half-blind fury. When next she spoke, Silvana's voice was dangerously soft, disarmingly slow. "What are you doing?"
Cassie paused, hands buried in pliant dough. "Making bread," she said with a saccharine smile, fingers scraping the bottom of the bag as she dug up another handful of flour. "Just like I was asked."
Yet to look at her, Silvana was staring at a glob of drying flour dangerously close to one of her daggers. "No." She dismissed Cassie's sarcastic response without giving it the honor of an argument.
"You're lying to me," Cassie spat, the only thing her anger-addled brain could focus on. "I don't know what's going on, but I know something is going on, and neither of you wants to tell me. If I don't know what I'm facing, I'm in more danger."
"You're not facing it, is the point."
Cassie nearly stamped her foot, she really did. "I am not a child!"
Now Silvana did look at her, her expression saying more than words ever could.
The red flared again, demanding to be fed. Cassie dropped the entire mess in her hands onto the tabletop, smearing it across the wooden surface with a grim satisfaction in imitation of kneading dough. Her eyes never left Silvana's, the fury making her foolish.
"Feel better?" Silvana asked when every inch of the table was covered.
Avoiding her gaze, Cassie picked remnants of the dough from her fingers. She wished she could say yes, but making the mess had not helped anything.
"It's so simple for the two of you, isn't it?" Cassie said, fighting to keep herself from yelling.
"Survival usually is, yes."
"It's not just your survival at stake now," Cassie said, throwing her arms up in frustration. "It's mine, too. What's out there affects me, too. And I can't protect myself if—"
"Not everything is about you," Silvana sneered.
Cassie's head shot up, rage boiling within as she glared at Silvana. Trust the banisè to drop an insult that would set fire to the smoking tinder. Cassie was not suggesting she was the center of the world, but she also wasn't an idiot. There was something going on, and if Silvana would not tell her, Cassie would have to make her.
She had taken one threatening step toward Silvana when the hide opened and another blond head poked inside. "I know how sticky the dough can get, so I brought some extra water for your hands—"
Skylar straightened, catching sight of the mess that awaited within. Of the fight brewing.
"Look at what she did!"
An unnecessary petition on Silvana's part, really. Skylar was looking. He stared at one wall after another, took in the white-speckled floor, and the drying paste covering their only table. Taking in each element with the serious consideration that Cassie thought she finally deserved.
And when he was done, he turned to Cassie. He did not ask a single question of her. No wondering what could have made her so upset, no suggestions for a reconciliation.
Instead, eyes filled with an anger that had not been present since the first night Silvana brought Cassie home, he snapped, "Clean this up."
If Cassie thought she knew what rage felt like before, she had been so, so wrong. This...this madness that surged through her now was true anger, so deep and heavy she could feel it up to her nose. One empty hand clenched into a fist, tighter than bones and skin should be able to sustain. If Skylar were within her reach right now, she'd...why, she'd kill him.
"It's your place," she retorted. "You clean it. It was filthy anyway."
Looking to be fighting to control his emotions, Skylar spoke slowly. "You made this mess," he said, each word deliberate. "You will clean it up."
"What about the messes you make?" Cassie snapped, infuriated by his hypocrisy. He and Silvana were constantly picking up something that the other had left lying around, annoyedly grumbling about the mess all the time. "You going to start cleaning those up?"
Skylar had left the book he had been reading last night down, splayed across the cushion of his chair so nobody could use it. Cassie picked it up with a dramatic flourish. She had never liked books. Boring, dusty, worthless things. Throw it.
"You going to pick up after yourself, too, or are you going to keep leaving your stuff everywhere?" Was it only Cassie who was expected to act as her own maid and scullery maid?
To punctuate her point, she made to toss the book onto the floor. If she was lucky, it would land in the fireplace. Ink and paper, that's all it was. Rubbish.
Cassie did not see the blur of motion that was Silvana, but she heard the furious snarl, and she certainly felt her arm getting twisted back and jerked into the sharp jaggedness of agony.
"I changed my mind," Silvana said, talking over Cassie's injured cry of pain as though it was the wind. "Let's throw her to the Guard."
The book tumbled from Cassie's suddenly numb fingers into Silvana's waiting hand.
The Guard? The king's Guard? Ice as cold as the mountain streams slid down her spine, the one thing that could succeed in banking the flames of Cassie's rage. A whimper slipped out.
King Marius had spent a decade cultivating the ranks of the Guard. It was the most selective military organization in the three kingdoms. And the safest, for those chosen to join. Unlike the army, which was subject to each whim and battle order of the king and his military advisors, the Guard was only sent out for one purpose: to exact the will of the king. They were his deadly pet fighters, at times barely better than the Volkts' Enforcers, that savage horde in Trenoriah.
She tried to think past the tendrils of pain that were licking clean to her shoulder, courtesy of Silvana's merciless grip.
Cassie, unlike her sister, had never had patience for their tutors' lessons. Information had a way of resisting entry to her mind, and proved even more eager to fight for the exit. The only thing that could hold her attention for longer than a few minutes were the old tales. She resisted every attempt at correction. She was not her father's heir, so what did it matter? All of this, with the result that Cassie had grown into her majority without much of what not even the most dedicated flatterers—not that there were many of those—could call intelligence.
But even she knew what it meant that the Guard was out.
They were looking for something.
Was it her? Had her father at last decided he cared enough for her to drag her back home? Could Elisabet have convinced him? Or would they make sure Cassie never exited the forest again, that she was too much trouble to be worth the effort?
Skylar and Silvana knew. Throw her to the Guard, Silvana had said. Were they ready to sell her out, then? Skylar had warned her before—information was a dangerous weapon, and they already knew too much about her weaknesses.
Cassie surrendered. She would have collapsed on the floor if Silvana had not been holding her up with pain. Uncaring of their furious stares, Cassie's head dropped. A sigh that was too much like a moan slid out with her next breath.
But Skylar was shaking his head and frowning at his sister. "You made your choice already," he said. "We're committed."
"An hour ago," Silvana tried to protest. An hour was nothing. Anything could change in such a short amount of time.
"We don't look back," Skylar said with a significant look. "We only move forward, remember?"
So Skylar would protect her, at least. Cassie twitched, trying to remind Silvana that she was still being held prisoner. The banisè released her abruptly, but she was not happy about it.
Skylar took a deep breath, releasing all of the tension in his body with the exhale. "Silvana, go kill something," he said, once again in control of himself. "You'll feel better."
His sister snarled something inarticulate at him but stalked out, bow in hand. Cassie could still hear her muttering as her footsteps faded, sounding like she was repeating Skylar's words in a mocking voice under her breath, so very like a sibling that Cassie almost smiled.
For lack of anywhere else to put it, Skylar placed the jug of water he had brought in the middle of the floor. He leveled a gaze at Cassie worthy of a general.
She crossed her arms and stared stonily back, waiting for him to shout at her.
Instead, he pointed at the table, the walls, the floor, and her.
"You going to sell me out to the Guard if I refuse?" Not that it mattered one way or the other what his answer was. They all knew what the word of a banisè was worth.
Skylar pinched the bridge of his nose, collecting himself. "Cassie, if you expect to live here, we expect you to care for it as your own home. If you feel that's beyond you..." He did not finish the threat. He did not have to.
He left without another word, leaving her to the empty room, leaving her trapped.
No, not trapped. She took a step toward the door, the hide still swaying. She could always leave. Run. Again.
Straight into the arms of the Guard. If she tried to leave here on her own, she would fall into the same trouble she had the first time she had fled home. She did not yet know her way well enough in the forest to risk it.
And Skylar, despite everything she had done and said to them, had refused to let Silvana turn her in. He had defended her. Did that mean they would not betray her?
Did it mean she was safe?
Debt piled upon debt. Cassie no longer simply owed the banisè her life, several times over. Now she knew they had protected something far more precious, something only a banisè truly understood the value of: her freedom.
And how had she repaid them? By throwing a tantrum and gleefully wrecking their home, their one safe location in this forest of dangers.
She did not deserve their protection. Sunshine and rain, she did not even deserve to be a banisè.
She cleaned the mess.